Results of a three-year monitoring study of two hotspots of massive arrival of microplastics in the Canary Islands (Spain): Playa Grande (Tenerife) and Arenas Blancas (El Hierro)

Nowadays, plastic pollution monitorization programs clearly provide relevant data that contribute to increase the knowledge of plastic contamination as well as to take actions against it. Such programs also allow to identify hotspots of marine debris arrival which is also of relevance in order to assist future clean-up operations or target mitigation strategies. Although there is not a clear definition of what a hotspot of plastic pollution is (especially that of microplastics), several beaches of the Canary Islands (Spain) have been catalogued as such: Playa del Ámbar (locally known as Playa Lambra) in La Graciosa, Playa de Famara in Lanzarote, Arenas Blancas in El Hierro [1] and Playa Grande in Tenerife [2], which are beaches with a north/north-east orientation with visual evidences of constant plastic contamination and reported values of more than 100 g/m2 of plastic in certain periods of the year. In this study, the arrival of microplastics at two of these hotspots of microplastic arrival was monitored in the period 2020-2023 by seasonal sampling. Plastic particles found were classified according to their size, shape and colour, and their composition was determined by Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Results obtained reveal that fragments are the most commonly found type of plastic, followed in general by granules and foam, which are mainly white and transparent. Polyethylene and polypropylene are the most commonly found polymer type. The average concentrations of microplastics vary from beach to beach, being higher at Playa Grande. Acknowledgments: Authors acknowledge financial support of the Transnational Cooperation Program Azores-Madeira-Canary Islands for the "IMPLAMAC" project (reference number MAC2/1.1a/265) financed with FEDER funds. Also see: https://micro2024.sciencesconf.org/559669/document